


1960

by lyatte



Category: Topp Dogg (Band)
Genre: Drabble, Hansol!Centric, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 10:45:57
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1896159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyatte/pseuds/lyatte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hansol preserves his entire world in film, and Dongsung was an image being rapidly smudged out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1960

On his twenty-first birthday, he tried marijuana. It was in the back of his coalition’s community van, the one with patchwork curtains and tie-dyed pillows. They were driving from Austin, Texas to the Capitol, and for what seemed like the billionth time, everyone was seeking to take the edge off of work. That van was their second home, (for some it was their only.) They had been traveling like this for almost a year, visiting every major rally in the country for the GL movement.

They ran an indie editorial, part of the Underground Press that linked all the counterculture activists together. There were tons of anti-war journals, but the GL movement was severely under-reported. On the bright side, there was hardly any competition. Hansol was their head photographer-- their only photographer. With equipment as old and creaky as their field journalist Sehyuk's joints, he painted pictures with film, factual art.

At pit stops along the route, all the different vans would pull alongside the road. They sat in the grass by the roadside. They talked, they sang, they debated every topic under the sun. The editor of his paper played his guitar, rough-finished wood covered in finger painted peace signs and flowers. Somehow it suited the guy, softening his image. Hansol sang the best of anyone. No matter how many different vans pulled alongside them, he could sing them all down. He sang Joan Baez and Lesley Gore, Cher and The Beatles. He began to be known on the road for his sweet voice as much as his pictures. If he didn't feel like singing, his editor wouldn't play. Hansol pretended to be remorseful, but he relished in the attention.

His editor had many funny habits.  
He was always strange when it came to Solie. It was he that always introduced him to someone new, told him any decisions, and took him everywhere. Hansol didn’t really say anything or take much notice-- until he placed where the habits came from. The night was pitch black, fifty miles from DC. Everyone was asleep outside when his editor pinned him down on tie-dyed pillows in the back of the van. From then on he was not Solie, but Dongsung's Solie. He was someone’s little china doll. This was a Gay Liberation movement after all.

When they got to the capitol, they were swamped with stories. The little printing boy with the thick, blond curls braided his hair with wildflowers, and he ran around the city, usually barefoot, taking pictures of every riot and march. They nicknamed him the film fairy, and he never seemed to stop running. Once in a riot, he was caught in the waves of people when the police started tear gassing the crowd. Of course, Dongsung was there to pull him out.

His last picture came out blurry. Two seconds more and he would have captured the climax moment of the decade, not that he was one to hold grudges.

Their paper staff went to the opening showing of Night of the Living Dead to celebrate their success, but Solie didn't remember much of it. He heard every word, but it was hard to see the screen with Dongsung trying to suck his face off.  
Love wasn't really all that it was cracked up to be.

They were in New York city on the night of one of the larger riots. Hansol didn't go to the scene. He was down with the flu, and Dongsung refused to let him out of the staff’s shared hotel room. Instead of sitting on his share of the floor wrapped in quilts, he got up and helped the printing boy, Byungjoo, with the issue due to be shipped out to the capital the next morning. It was 5am when the rest of the staff came back. They all avoided his eyes and said nothing, heavy burdens on their shoulders. He did not ask and waited to be told. They got Byungjoo to tell him, sitting in his lap nervous and blushing as the dawn broke.

Dongsung had died in the riot. The crowd had crushed him out of a broken, fourth story window. He had died instantly, so they said.

Solie said nothing. For days, he was silent. The others took it as mourning, but he knew the truth.   
This was the Gay Liberation movement after all.   
In the mornings, he smiled at himself in dingy hotel bathroom mirrors. Liberated. He kissed Byungjoo as he passed him in the hotel hallway. As the boy sputtered and flushed to his hairline, Hansol grinned and walked on.

He sang at the funeral, barefoot with wildflowers braided into his hair. It was Hey Jude, and he got through the whole thing flawlessly until the nanana section at the end, even without a finger painted guitar. Everyone joined in, just the way they used to. The song was Dongsung's favorite, Solie's voice was his favorite, and before he could think about it, soundless tears slipped down his cheeks. Though he had never been more than someone’s china doll, Dongsung's Solie instead of his own, he had never been loved and had never lost.  
Love wasn’t really all that it was cracked up to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Uhm, this is my first Toppdogg thing (for some unfathomable reason) and my first entry on AO3.
> 
> I kinda wrote it on my phone, and it's shorter than I wanted, but fuck it.
> 
> Rise of Tdoogs, leggo.


End file.
